Giant slalom time, aka Ted Day

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Yes, there are a good 60-other guys racing today, but we're Americans and so all eyes just happen to be on Ted Ligety with GS runs at 9:45 a.m. and 12:45 p.m.

No pressure there, Ted. You just have about 160 seconds today during the course of a 366-day calendar year - we leapt in 2012 - to win on home snow.

The crazy thing is that Ligety can still do this, despite all this pressure, and the fact that there are tons of great racers ready to get in his way.

On another thread, GS may be the best single discipline of alpine skiing to determine the best overall skier on a given day. Short of holding a combined event, GS takes the technical skills of slalom with some of the speed of super-G or a downhill.

Format: 69 racers will start in the first run. The top-30 finishers advance to the second run. The top 30 will be flipped so that fastest guy in the first run goes last in the second run. A racer must finish both runs to earn points. Just making the flip doesn't do it.

Weather: Bring your golf clubs. The forecast high is 47 degrees. We still can't get over this weather.

GS stats: Racers drop 1,407 feet from a starting elevation of 10,351. The course is nearly a mile long at 4,806 feet.

Intervals: Golden Eagle and The Abyss.

Look out for: The winner will have to carry speed from the top. It's not a long course, especially by comparison to the speed races of the last two days, but athletes are short on oxygen at this altitude (8,900 feet at the finish). That makes the final gates lung-busters.

Favorites: Well, that would be Ted. Austria's Hirscher (3) won the GS and men's overall globes last year, so he's Ligety's main rival. Blardone (5), a winner here in 2006, is in the mix as is France's Alexis Pinturault (4) and Austria's Hannes Reichelt (7), who seems to like Beaver Creek a lot.

Darkhorses: How about Austria's Philipp Schoerghofer (2)? Italy's Manfred Moelgg (11) was second in the season-opening GS in Soelden, Austria. Keep an eye on Germany's Fritz Dopfer (10), and France's Cyprien Richard (13). Also, don't count out Norway's dynamic duo of Svindal (12) and Kjetil Jansrud (14). They both have been sizzling this week.